


Here's to All We Loved (That Wasn't Meant to Last)

by Yevynaea



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Multi, Platonic Romance, Platonic Soulmates, Poor Grant Ward, Post-Canon, Sad Ending, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, almost canon compliant, basically everything happens the same as in canon, except that the five of them are soulmates, i cannot write happy things lately, or just soulmates in general idc how you see it, so beware of spoilers if you aren't caught up, which makes everything about 2343 times more painful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 18:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One soulmark was normal. Two was unusual, but not uncommon. Four was pretty much unheard of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's to All We Loved (That Wasn't Meant to Last)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Kevin Rudolf's 'Here's to Us' because it came up on my tumblr dash yesterday and I've had it stuck in my head since.

            Her first mark showed up then she was only one year old, though she didn’t remember it happening. The others came a couple years later, one after the other with a few months in between each where her parents dared to hope that the new one would be the last.

When she was in school she hid her arms under jumpers and cardigans, and long sleeved dresses, even on the rare days when it was warm enough not to, which eventually became a stuck habit. She would watch her classmates compare marks and see some eventually start to recognize each other’s handwriting on their skin, and she would ignore the itch that developed on her upper arms whenever she thought about the words there.

            Jemma never showed anyone her soulmark, because she didn’t have just one. She didn’t even have two _,_ like some people had. No, Jemma had _four_ soulmarks, two printed down the inside of one arm and two down the other.

            ‘ _Ok, look, just because we have to share space right now doesn’t mean I have to appreciate you putting animal guts on my side of the desk.’_

_‘Fitzsimmons?’_

_‘What if you had the audio?’_ (That one was in dark indigo handwriting, instead of black. In dim light it passed as normal, but when she looked at it under the bright light above her bathroom mirror she could tell it was different. She didn’t know what to think; no one had ever said anything about different colored soul marks.)

            ‘ _Tough when it’s your team.’_

Jemma never knew what any of them were supposed to mean, except the first one which seemed pretty self-explanatory if not a bit confusing, but at least none of them were as generic as a greeting or a passing remark like so many others had. Whoever the four people were that she was destined to find, at least she’d be able to recognize them right away by their somewhat strange first words to her. Or, she thought she would be. Like so many other things in Jemma’s life, it ended up being a little more complicated than that.

 

♦

 

            Leo’s marks didn’t show up until he was twelve, and then they all showed up at once. He woke up one day and went to get dressed for school, only for the dark words wrapped around his left forearm to catch his eye. ‘ _Oh, so you do talk!’_ He hated his soulmate immediately.

            Then he went to brush his teeth, and with his shirt still half unbuttoned he could see that there were more words just under his collarbone, a second person’s handwriting printed in ink that looked more blue than black. He pulled his shirt away so he could read them, albeit slowly since he had to read them reflected. ‘ _What if you had the audio?’_ Leo looked down at the words on his arm, then back to the ones on his chest. Well, that wasn’t so unusual, for someone to have two soulmates. Though the color in the second one was kind of weird.

            The third one was printed across the top of his foot, which he noticed right before he left the house. Reaching down to pull his socks on, he blinked a few times at the neatly written ‘ _Hey, you guys got anything to drink that isn’t alcohol?’_ Boring, a bit worrying, but better than the first one, and not in need of deciphering like the second. Still, three soulmates was pretty uncommon.

            He made it halfway through the school day without noticing the last one. But when he had to change clothes for gym, he carefully kept his back to the rest of the locker room so no one would see the multiple marks. This, of course, backfired terribly.

            “You’ve got your mark!” One boy said excitedly, and Leo turned his head to see who his classmate was addressing. The boy pointed to a spot on Leopold’s back, under one of his shoulder blades, and Leo craned his neck, just able to see the edge of yet another mark.

            “What’s it say?” Leo demanded. Another boy helpfully read aloud. ‘ _Fitzsimmons?’_ Leo had no idea how his fourth ( _fourth!_ ) soulmate could get his last name so catastrophically wrong.

He was not very impressed by any of these people.

 

♦

 

            Here’s what Antoine Triplett knew about his future, when he turned eight and his marks all appeared within a few weeks of each other: he would speak first. He would speak first to allfour of his soulmates. Apparently they weren’t very outgoing types.

He also knew that he would almost certainly follow his parents into SHIELD, because one of his marks (the one that spiraled up his ankle) read, ‘ _It’s been nice to meet you, Agent Triplett.’_ You could only be an agent of so many things, and with Trip’s family history, SHIELD was the most probable bet.

            Another thing he knew was that one of his soulmates was sort of weird. The mark that crawled up his ribs was dark purple, which was pretty much unheard of, even in the ranks of SHIELD. That and the words themselves made for a slightly disconcerting effect. ‘ _Thanks, and it’s good not to be dying.’_ Then again, it stood to reason that he’d meet some, if not all, of his soulmates at work, so Antoine told himself he should expect weirdness.

            The other two marks were written out in a continuous line across his back and cut at the spine so that they would have passed for one mark if the handwritings weren’t so different, and they didn’t tell him much. ‘ _Not really.’_ was printed in small looping letters on one side of his back, while the other side read ‘ _Uh, we might have ginger ale in the fridge, but I think that’s it right now.’_

            Antoine Triplett was, of course, prepared to withhold judgment regarding his soulmates until he met them. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t always curious about what kind of people they’d be.

 

♦

 

            Skye didn’t know exactly when any of her marks appeared. She remembered when each of them had been noticed and pointed out to her, but she didn’t know how long they’d been on her skin before that.

            There was one on the bottom of each foot, noticed by a foster sister at age ten, and she knew she’d meet those two people at the same time. ‘ _Um, that audio would be great.’_ was scribbled under her left foot, while ‘ _We will take that audio, please.’_ was written under the right. Skye had no idea what audio they were talking about, but she supposed she’d find out.

            She didn’t particularly want to find out about the other two. ‘ _You don’t look that big.’_ Those were the words scrawled across the back of her neck and always hidden by her hair, except for when she was thirteen and had moved her hair to put a necklace on. The mark was pointed out to her by a fellow orphanage resident, and whoever the soulmate was that it belonged to sounded like a complete jerk; even without context she could practically hear the condescension dripping from the sentence. Ugh.

            Likewise, the mark under her breast, not noticed until she was seventeen and a boyfriend saw it, just sounded creepy. In easy-to-read but somewhat untidy lettering were the words ‘ _Come on, girl.’_ Which Skye really hoped would end up being better when heard in context.

            The weirdest part was that none of her marks were the normal black. The two on her feet were a dull-ish ochre-orange and a light shade of lavender, respectively, while the one on her chest was dark teal. The one that made her frown most, though, was the one on the back of her neck, because it was a deep blood red.

 

♦

 

            All of Grant’s marks were on his sides, two reading top-to-bottom and two the other way round. They appeared when he was about nine, one of them a dark sort of purple and the rest black like they should be. He hated the fourth one; he didn’t know why the universe would pair him up with someone so different that they got their own color.

            He hid the marks from his parents and his brother, which was thankfully pretty easy, and he always pretended he didn’t have any, because no soulmate was better than four when you knew you could never be the person they deserved. Even after Garrett got him out of everything, brought him into the fold of SHIELD and of Hydra and gave him a purpose again. Even after all that, Grant knew he’d almost definitely never be what his soulmates would want, so he gave up before ever meeting them.

            Every once and a while, though, despite himself, he’d still wonder. He’d wonder who _‘Hey…what up?’_ was and why they were a different color than everyone else. He’d wonder about _‘Simmons’_ and _‘Fitz’_ and why all he got was their names. And he’d wonder about _‘Garrett’s been telling me a lot about you, Agent Ward,’_ and what they’d be told.

            And he’d wonder why fate had given him these people he didn’t deserve. He still wondered that much later, in his cell, when he knew all their names and faces and had tried to use his fingernails to claw away the marks in his skin because they were evidence of exactly who all he had betrayed.

 

♦

 

            “Why don’t you go sit with Leopold, over there?” The professor in charge of keeping an eye on the labs suggested, and a still-somewhat-asleep Jemma looked to where the woman was pointing to see a boy about her age with what looked like a small robot in front of him. He sent a scowl in the professor’s direction when he heard the words, and Jemma didn’t think he’d appreciate her company, especially with the rat corpse she was working with. But it was the only empty seat, so she went over anyway.

            Leopold didn’t greet her, so she didn’t greet him, only got to work. (It was slow going, seeing that she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink that morning and was beginning to regret that.) It was only when she scooted a couple of the rat’s organs over nearer to his half of the workspace that Leopold spoke.

            “Ok, look, just because we have to share space right now--” He said, his accent Scottish, and Jemma was thoughtlessly speaking over him even as he completed his sentence.

“Oh, so you do talk!” She snarked.

“—Doesn’t mean I have to appreciate you putting animal guts on my side of the desk.” He finished, and then the two of them blinked as each one processed exactly what the other had said.

“Hi.” Jemma said, feeling a bit sheepish.

“Hi.” The young man held his hand out to her, then took a glance at the rat and withdrew it again. “Leo Fitz.”

“Jemma Simmons.” The two of them had an almost simultaneous moment of realization, each thinking of the one-word question that was one of their other soulmates. “Do you have…?”

“More, yeah.” Leo nodded. “Have you…?”

“Met them? No, not yet.” Jemma shook her head. “They’re probably a bunch of crazy Americans, though, honestly.”

Fitz huffed a tiny little laugh.

 

♦

 

            “Garrett’s been telling me a lot about you, Agent Ward. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Trip, as he’d been introduced by Garrett, smiled and held his hand out for Grant to shake. “It seems I have big shoes to fill.”

            Grant nodded in respectful acknowledgement, and shook Triplett’s hand, but didn’t say anything, trying not to wonder if this was the man—or one of them—whose words stretched up his side. He wondered anyway, and couldn’t really focus on whatever story John was telling. Grant wondered about Trip until Deputy Director Hill came in and said she’d been looking for him, and then he calmly went to shake the man’s hand again.

            “It’s been nice to meet you, Agent Triplett.” Grant said, and he turned away before he could see the expression on Antoine’s face.

 

♦

 

            “Fitzsimmons?” They barely reacted to the word. It was such a common question since the Academy that they’d kind of given up on identifying that soulmate from it by now.

            “Fitz.” Simmons introduced Fitz.

            “Simmons.” Fitz introduced Simmons. “I’m engineering, she’s _biochem_. Agent, Ward?”

            Grant did his best not to react; three soulmates in one day and he couldn’t afford to get attached to any of them. He took a deep breath, and sighed, carefully keeping an expression of disinterest on his face.

            “Coulson said I’d need my comm receiver encoded.”

 

♦

 

            “Hey…” The Rising Tide hacker looked with wide eyes from Coulson to Ward when the van opened. “What up?”

            Grant once again didn’t say anything, until they were back on the Bus and he was pushing his fourth soulmate onto a chair.

            “You’re making a big mistake.” The hacker informed them, and Grant smirked, just a bit, because if he didn’t he might have started yelling instead and that would’ve been worse.

            “You don’t look that big.” He replied before he could think about it, but she didn’t react besides a slight narrowing of her eyes. He fooled himself into thinking maybe she wasn’t his soulmate, until the tables were turned and Skye was ‘interrogating’ him.

            “So, you have a soulmark?” She asked casually, but he saw the curiosity behind her unconcerned façade. “Or maybe more than one? I hear that’s pretty common, now.”

            “No,” He lied easily, looking down at the table. “I don’t have any.”

 

♦

 

            “Fitzsimmons, Skye. Skye, Fitzsimmons. You can do a meet and greet later, right now let’s see what we can find on this guy.” Coulson said, and Skye pulled Mike Peterson’s ID out of her pocket and handed it over, and then everything was all secret-agent crazy and Skye felt very out of place.

            Then Fitzsimmons, who Skye realized was both of the scientists, was talking about not being able to recreate the situation in the now-exploded building.

            “What if you had the audio?” She asked, explaining that she might have the audio to go with the video when they looked at her in confusion. They deliberated between themselves before turning back to her.

            “Um, that audio would be great.”

            “We will take that audio, please.”

            “Thank you very, very much.”

            In between everything, it wasn’t until later that any of them actually realized what words had been said.

 

♦

 

            When Garrett and Coulson went to speak with Quinn, Trip thought about taking up Ward on his invitation and getting something from the plane’s bar, but he didn’t want to drink on the job. He was still debating the pros and cons of just opening a beer or two when one of Agent Coulson’s scientists walked into the room.

            “Hey, you guys got anything to drink that isn’t alcohol?” Trip asked, and the scientist froze for a second.

            “Uh, we might have ginger ale in the fridge, but I think that’s it right now.” The younger man eventually said, pointing in the general direction of the refrigerator. Trip nodded, not giving himself time to react. One of this team was on the verge of death, Trip told himself. Now was not the time to be freaking out about having met another one of his soulmates.

            “Thanks. What’s your name?”

            “Fitz.” Fitz absently held out one hand.

            “Trip. Nice to meet you, Fitz.” Trip shook Fitz’s hand, and went in search of a ginger ale.

 

♦

 

            “Tough when it’s your team.” Triplett said. They were the first words he’d said directly to her the whole time he and Garrett had been on board, and Jemma nodded somewhat absently, looking at Skye in the med pod. “You guys go back a ways?”

            “Not really. A few months.” Jemma felt tears threatening to rise into her eyes. “We have nothing in common, couldn’t be more different.”

            “But you can’t imagine your life without her.” Trip nodded in understanding.

            “Yes. You’ve experienced that, Agent Triplett?” Jemma asked, not so much out of curiosity as wanting confirmation.

            “I have.” He answered. “Sometimes a person takes you by surprise.”

 

♦

 

            “No! Don’t give it to her!” Coulson burst into the room a moment too late; Simmons had already given Skye the drug.

            “I was losing her anyway.” Jemma said, tears in her eyes. “What harm can it do?”

            “Come on, girl.” Trip muttered, willing Skye through the worst of it.

 

♦

 

            “Congratulations.” Trip grinned, pointing to Skye’s newly issued SHIELD badge. “It’s good to see you up and walking around.”

            “Thanks, and it’s good not to be dying.” She replied with a half-sarcastic grin, and Trip laughed, his hand going to the words on his ribs. Skye caught the movement and her head cocked to the side slightly, her hand going to a similar spot on her own chest. She seemed to be thinking about something for a moment before she asked, “Hey, did you…did you talk to me? While I was dying?”

            “Yeah, once.” Trip confirmed, and Skye nodded, rubbing at what Trip knew had to be his mark.

            “When this is over.” Skye said, and it wasn’t quite a promise, or a request, or anything tragic or romantic, because it didn’t need to be. It _couldn’t_ be, with everything happening. It was just a sentence, (half a sentence, really) nothing more, and Trip nodded.

 

♦

 

            Fitz was jealous. He knew he shouldn’t be, he knew he had nothing to worry about from Trip, knew that they were all destined for each other and here was no way Trip would steal Jemma away. But he still worried about it. He thought maybe it’d be better if it was just the two of them, if their other three marks weren’t even there. Despite his best efforts, he was still jealous.

            He tried not to be, though, for her.

 

♦

 

            It didn’t end, there was never an afterwards, because then there was Hydra and there was Garrett and there was _Ward_ and then Coulson was director and it all went to hell again and again. And the five of them still hid their marks, still said nothing, because really only two of them were completely left so it really wasn’t the time for any of them to say that they knew what the others were. One of them was broken and another was gone and one was only half trustworthy if even that.

            So those that were left, and those that weren’t, didn’t say anything.


End file.
